Baby's Christening Party

My little nephew Henri was christened on 8 April 2018, with a party to celebrate held afterwards at the local cricket pavilion. The room was a complete blank canvas, with a lot of blue going on - curtains, chairs and that carpet! I worked with my sister-in-law Rebecca to bring her vision for the space to life - with a florist in the family there were definitely going to be some creative decorations, however we didn't want to go floral when it was a celebration for a little boy.

The answer - foliage! 

I definitely feel foliage is under appreciated, there are so many gorgeous varieties, shapes, textures and scents. I therefore used two different varieties of eucalyptus - parvifolia and populus - as well as soft ruscus in the designs. We'd visited the pavilion a few weeks before to discuss ideas and see what would work in the space. 

One of the main features of the decorations was this hanging curtain of foliage which was strung across the full width of the room. It's great when decorating a space to not only think about the available surfaces in a room but also other places you can bring detail into. There was a handy beam across the centre of the room from the room divider which lent itself perfectly to the hanging curtain, which could be viewed from anywhere in the room and was therefore a very versatile decoration. 

Another main feature was this wall of hanging hoops, which would double up as a photo backdrop. Everyone was posing for photographs in front of it and some of the images I've seen so far look amazing.

There were 11 windowsills in the pavilion, so we just had to decorate these! Luckily I have a huge collection of glassware, so we utilised these along with windowsills. We had some sills with a combination of five different sized and shaped vases, and the rest had loose garlands of foliage draped along them. 

The garland and vases along the back wall were actually a last minute add on, as looking down the room it really felt like something was missing. I had some foliage to spare so we made the simple soft ruscus garland and added a few extra vases along the back of the food table - it finished the room off perfectly.

Some of the other decorations we incorporated were little vases on the tables, more vases on either side of the bar, garlands over the two hatch doors through to the kitchen and Rebecca also got these translucent white balloons. Not only did these look really elegant in the room the kids loved them!